Hardness, friction and wear characteristics of 3D-printed PLA polymer

The mechanical and tribological behaviors of the parts manufactured with 3D printing methods differ with variations in the manufacturing parameters. This paper aims to investigate the effect of the layer thickness and layer orientation parameters on the hardness, friction coefficient and wear properties of PLA samples printed by Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) method. Samples were printed with three different layer thicknesses in two different build orientations. The hardness of the samples was tested by D-type shore hardness durometer and a pin-on-disc setup was used to measure the friction coefficient and wear rate of the samples. The analysis of the experimental results showed the distinctive effect of the layer orientation and layer thickness which further discussed in the paper.